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ivec.org SCC: Introduction Key cluster architecture rules: Machine must contain only publicly available components All components must be turned on at all times (low-watt idle okay) When running applications, must not exceed V power draw (~3120 W)

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ivec.org SCC: iVEC’s Motivation Increase computational science literacy in WA Develop future users/employees Train professional workforce for local industry Exposure for iVEC in international HPC community It sounded like fun!

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ivec.org II. BUILDING & TRAINING THE TEAM “Compiling,”

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ivec.org Starting iVEC’s SCC Team Began by raising interest at iVEC partner universities Contacted iVEC directors at universities, got leads for whom to contact First interest came from ECU (3 students) Other unis followed

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ivec.org Team Hardware Sponsorship Most important sponsorship to get SGI very enthusiastic about sponsoring team Put best person in Asia-Pacific region on project Todd helped team: Select machine architecture Determine software stack Set the machine up in Perth & at competition

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ivec.org Team Hardware Sponsorship When team decided to use GPUs in cluster, NVIDIA loaned us 8 K20X GPUs Received free of charge through academic program (had to return after competition  )

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ivec.org Team Travel Sponsorship Travel to competition very expensive Budget: $3000/student SGI committed enough for half of team Solicited support from mining companies in WA, successful with Rio Tinto

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ivec.org Team Composition Breakdown: 3 Computer Science/Games majors from ECU 2 Physics/Computer Engineering majors from UWA 1 Geophysics major from Curtin Each student assigned areas of expertise (1 primary, 2 secondary) At beginning of training, I facilitated students’ development of team norms (standards of behavior) that proved very effective No conflicts, no inappropriate behavior

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ivec.org Linpack History Linear algebra library written in Fortran Benchmarking added in late 1980s to estimate calculation times Initial releases used fixed matrix sizes 100 and 1000 Arbitrary problem size support added in 1991 LAPACK replaced the Linpack library for linear algebra, however Linpack benchmarking tool still used today

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ivec.org HPL Standard Released in 2000 re-written in C and optimized for parallel computing Uses MPI and BLAS The standard benchmark used measure supercomputer performance Used to determine the Top500 Also used for stress testing and maintenance analysis

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ivec.org CUDA HPL CUDA-accelerated Linpack released by NVIDIA available on developer zone Uses the GPU instead of the CPU and limited to GPU memory Popularity gaining with GPU providing better flops/watt Standard for HPL runs in Student Cluster Competitions

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ivec.org WRF Next-generation mesoscale numerical weather prediction system Used for both weather prediction and research forecasting, throughout the world

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ivec.org MYSTERY APPLICATION: FLYING SNAKES!

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ivec.org Mystery Application Unknown application, presented at competition To prepare, compiled and ran one new code each week during 2 nd semester Gained experience with different types of compiles (e.g., edit makefiles, make.inc, cmake, autoconf, etc.) Gained familiarity with common errors encountered while compiling, and how to fix them

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ivec.org Competition Arrived in Denver Thursday before competition, to acclimate to 15-hour time difference Visited National Renewable Energy Laboratory to see supercomputers Began setting up on Saturday before competition Competition time: Monday evening – Wednesday evening Wednesday evening: party at Casa Bonita Thursday: Pros vs. amateurs competition Friday: back home

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ivec.org Scenes from the Trip

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ivec.org Scenes from the Trip

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ivec.org Team Booth

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ivec.org Casa Bonita

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ivec.org Taking Down the Booth

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ivec.org Results Official champion: University of Texas (last year’s champions too) Other rankings not given, but we were middle of pack Entire team (including coach) learned a lot! Students have potential leads for jobs & further study Plans to coach another team for 2014